Alright, Keep it Together
by aloxi
Summary: "Cat," I say loudly. "Cat. I just used the word 'whatevs' in my internal monologue." "I think you're drunk," she answers, which would of course be the natural conclusion. / / Or, fast-forward eight years. Eventual Jade/Beck.


_Prologue: _

_During Which I Vomit. _

_...A Lot._

You know, this is exactly why I'm not nice to people.

Well. Maybe not _exactly _this, but you get the point. I'm like 37% drunk at the moment, give me a little leeway with the hyperbole.

"Jade. Jade? Hey, Jade. Jade. Jadey! Jade!"

"Oh my God, I will _stab you in the eye._"

Cat giggles, grabbing my beautiful, beautiful glass and taking a sip. A grimace and full-body shudder later, I'm gifted with a wounded look. "This is _alcohol_."

"Which would be the point of a bar, yes." I grab the glass back, intent upon making it to a full 100% drunk by the end of the night. "Go dance with someone. Let me die alone in peace and harmony."

_Thunk_. Hello counter, meet my forehead.

Because Cat has been incapable of following directions ever since second grade, when she spent reading time coloring all the dolls in with different fluorescent markers until our classroom could boast the only collection of gay pride Barbies, she sinks down beside me. The stools are far enough apart that I don't have to worry about her actually touching me in any way, shape, or form. Excellent. "What happened?"

My response is somewhat muffled by wood and a previous shot of tequila, but I'm pretty sure that even _Cat _gets the gist of, "If you try and talk to me about this I will not even feel vaguely bad about punching you in the fucking face."

I make out a little sound of alarm. "Oh, that doesn't sound fun."

"It won't be. _Bye._"

See, if I had never been nice to Cat, it would be very easy to ignore the little dejected sigh she makes when I hear her feet hit the ground. It would also be very easy to ignore the fact that I had kind of texted her and asked her to come here in the first place.

And the almighty force of logic once again keeps me from acting just as bitchy as I'd like.

"Hey." I prop myself up on my elbows, hair falling all over my face, which I'm sure is super-attractive. "Cat, hey, come ba— ah!"

While I'm recovering from a heart attack brought on by an insane redhead popping up on my opposite side with an ear-splitting squeal, she proceeds to jump up and down (drawing lots of attention from a few guys at a near table, might I add). "I wasn't _leaving_," she says between giggles, clasping a hand over her lip-glossed mouth. "I was pretending! See, wasn't that cool?"

"Tremendous," I say, waving my hand for another drink. It slides into my hands, and my mouth soon after.

Cat is tapping her foot against the stained wood floor. How do you even get stains on wood? Acidic, Spiderman-esque drunken puking? "Are you gonna tell me what's the matter?" she asks, her voice lilting all over the place as she rocks onto the balls of her feet beside me.

I groan. Counter, forehead: your reunion is nigh. "One, quit shoving your boobs in my face." _Thunk._ "Two, I hate life. The end."

"That was a bad story. You didn't even have a beginning. Or a middle. Or really an end, I guess..."

"Cat. Not. The. _Point_."

"Oh. Sorry, what was the point?"

The sad thing is, she is completely non-sarcastic when she says this. I make an irritated noise into the countertop, arms crossed over my head. "I have no _point!_ Ugh, I just— I just want to get drunk and go home with a trucker," I inform the wood currently occupying a good portion of my face.

"That's not safe," Cat chides. I feel her hand on my shoulder, and I can't find the will to shake it off. Too much effort. I need another drink. I raise my hands blindly, hoping the bartender is close enough to see my desperate pleas, and am rewarded when a cool glass is pressed against my fingers a second later. Excellent service. I'll have to fill out a comment card.

I force myself up again to drink. Cat watches me patiently and, after I've slammed the empty glass back on the counter (seriously, why drink tequila in less than fifteen seconds? What's the point?), she asks simply, "What's wrong, Jade?"

Gah. _Caring_. I hate that stuff.

"…They finally hired a new drama teacher," I tell her. Oh my God, tequila, where are you? I need you in my life, like, yesterday. _Please. _My throat feels all hot and scratchy. Maybe I'm dying. I swallow hard, and the bartender becomes significantly more attractive to me when a full glass makes its way into my hand.

Cat claps, crossing her legs. Why does she have such nice tan legs when I'm over here being all Casper the Anemic Ghost? "Yay!"

Christ. "No, not yay!" I yell. Tequila… you get down my throat. Now.

When that's been accomplished, I'm feeling a bit woozy from some combination of vague drunkenness and half-hearted hysteria brought on by the cataclysm of suck that was _today. _Cat shakes her head at me, all 'oh-Jadey-I'm-so-disappointed-in-you,' which is crap, because I was not kidding when I threatened to end her the next time she calls me _Jadey. _I'm not a four year old nor am I an adorable house pet, hence it just sounds retarded.

I need more alcohol in my body. And also a penis.

"Hey, you!" The bartender turns toward me obediently. I love when I'm not challenged. "You're kind of like somewhat attractive."

"You're a real charmer," he says, and goes back to mixing drinks.

"Jade," Cat whines, leaning in closer. Only Cat could come to a bar and not even think about getting drunk. What is her life? "Tell me what happened. What about the new drama teacher?"

"I hate you," I inform the bartender before I register her question. The urge to drink until I pass out hits me like a brick in the face. "Dammit!" Counter, forehead, your love affair can now continue. _Thunk. _"I'm quitting my job. Give me your cell phone."

"That's not a good idea," Cat says. When I don't answer in what she deems an appropriate amount of time (two minutes. Give or take. I allow at least five, ten when at maximum level of drunkenness and world-hating), she leans over and pokes me in the side. I immediately twitch so hard and spastically that my empty glass almost goes flying to the floor. If it did, I would have no receptacle for my alcohol and then someone would be dying.

"Fuckin' _a,_ Cat!" I shriek, slamming my elbows onto the counter and trying to ignore the stares our little corner of the world is now getting.

"You weren't talking," Cat offers meekly in defense. I gnash my teeth. She re-crosses her legs and says, "Why do you want to quit your job?"

"It sucks," I snap, and apparently the tone of my voice is enough to alert Vaguely Attractive Bartender to the fact that I am lacking in tequila right now and if this continues, it will not end well. I think I manage some expression resembling gratefulness when he refills my glass. "I'm quitting," I continue after a few gulps, "and I'm leaving and I'm joining a Mexican nunnery. End."

"Do they have nunneries in Mexico?" Cat wonders thoughtfully.

Sometimes, the reasons why I haven't killed her yet escape me.

"Just… let's shh. Let's be quiet. Quiet is fun." I catch the bartender rolling his eyes, so I slam my re-emptied glass down as hard as I can. He flinches. Score.

Amazingly, Cat does in fact sit in complete silence with me for the better part of ten minutes. It's like heaven, but without all the sex I imagined any real heaven would entail. Throughout these ten minutes, I continue in my quest to become the drunkest girl in Hollywood who isn't a total slut (though to be fair, I succeeded the minute I sipped my first beer a couple of hours ago).

"The new drama teacher," I say eventually, head swimming around the thousand gallons of tequila I seem to have inhaled, "is the bane of my very existence."

This sucks. This motherfucking _sucks. _

"Oh," Cat says. "That sounds bad." She stares down at me as I slump over and rub my finger around the rim of the glass. Why do kids even need drama class, anyway? Fuck acting.

…It's not like I'm an actress or anything. Was an actress. Whatever. Doesn't matter. I much prefer being the most badass English teacher to ever exist, which would in fact be how many of my students apparently feel if the million and a half notes I've confiscated so far this year are to be believed. Besides, fame isn't even all that amazing. Just saying. Well, okay, _Broadway_ is great; it's all the chiz that comes after that made me want to scream.

Or say screw you to the entire business and become a teacher. Whatevs.

"Cat," I say loudly. "Cat. I just used the word 'whatevs' in my internal monologue."

"I think you're drunk," she answers, which would of course be the natural conclusion.

"_Cat,_" I repeat, trying to grab onto her arm. It's a lot harder than it looks when half the world seems to have become liquefied. Are you kidding me? My mom can hold down like sixteen bottles of tequila without getting tipsy and I'm dead drunk after a few glasses? Where is the familial connection?

Cat pats my hand where it rests on her shoulder. "You should go home. Come on, I'll drive you. You can see my new fuzzy dice! They're super-cute."

"I don't care about fuzzy dice!" Yet, despite this indisputably true fact, I throw money onto the counter for Vaguely Attractive Bartender and let Cat lead me outside to her tiny blue car. It's so midgety, I feel obese whenever I'm in it.

"You have a small car," I inform her as she backs up. My mouth tastes like tequila. Mmm, tequila. I attempt to lick the inside of my mouth as she babbles, "But it's so adorable! I knew I had to get it the second I saw it, plus to salesman was soooo nice, and he liked my shirt a lot and I didn't even pay as much as the price tag said, isn't that—"

"Beck Oliver's the new drama teacher," I interrupt, wonder why I bothered saying his last name because I'm pretty sure everyone on the planet, _especially_ Cat, knows who I mean when I say 'Beck,' but before Cat can respond to my drunken outburst I feel my stomach twist. Ten seconds later she's pulled over and I'm puking on the side of the road, which is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds, just so you know.

"Oh, Jade," Cat sighs, patting my back. It's the most physical contact I've had with anyone in the better part of six months. If I can't get rid of my hangover tomorrow, I'll be going to the school Monday with a pounding headache. My ex-boyfriend has a classroom down the hall. He hasn't changed at all in six years, despite what various movies have led me to believe.

_Fuck my life, _I think. And then I start puking again.

* * *

**a/n: **~Mixin' it up~ and whatnot. Multi-chapter future!Jade/Beck. With cameos by... everyone else. BD Yay or nay, ya'll? Also plztobe forgiving my laziness/inability concerning titles. :/ Forever.


End file.
